


Help Yourself

by grayangel



Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Gang-Related Violence, M/M, Mafia AU, Mobster AU, Mobster!Steve, References to Underage Sex, Stripper!Bucky, references to non-consensual prostitution
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-27
Updated: 2015-01-29
Packaged: 2018-03-03 21:06:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2887922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grayangel/pseuds/grayangel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve is a mafia capo working under Don Fury. Bucky is homeless and illegal and on the run. Arnim Zola is extremely suspicious, and no one knows who killed that Russian guy. Turf wars, crazy science, emotions, and shenanigans ensue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Speak

**Author's Note:**

> I blame this post (http://theshadowofthewaxwing.tumblr.com/post/106148812260/rogers-and-stark-mafia-au-storyline-is-here) for giving me the idea, though the story here is different from their AU. It got the mobster thoughts rolling.
> 
> This is my first long-form fanfic. It's weirdly different from writing original content. I'm having fun with it. I also don't have a beta, so feel free to point out errors.
> 
> Disclaimer: I am an English teacher, and neither a mobster nor a doctor. Google is my best friend, but if you are a member of the mafia or a doctor, you might spot some inconsistencies. Apologies in advance.
> 
> Also, because I'm a giant dork, chapter titles are all songs. This one's by Nickel Creek.
> 
> •••

At six thirty-five on a Friday evening in March, Steve Rogers is almost killed in a family diner. It happens like this:

Steve is a caporegime in the Fury mafia family. He's with his soldier Sam Wilson, and they're here to kill a man. Aleksander Lukin is a Russian mobster who's been trying to move in on their turf, and Steve's boss Nick Fury has told him to deal with the situation. Lukin is with his wife. It's their anniversary dinner, so he makes his bodyguards wait outside. Steve's other soldiers will take care of them.

Steve is supposed to create the distraction. Sam is supposed to shoot Lukin. It doesn't happen like this.

The Fury family controls this diner. It's on 14th street, Steve's territory. Steve is the most powerful and well-known capo in the family, and Lukin recognizes him. This is part of the plan. They talk, veiling threats behind smiles and pleasantries. Lukin doesn't even see Sam, but the wife does. She moves.

Sam's soft. The wife throws herself in front of Lukin, and he won't take a shot at someone who isn't the target. Lukin's fast, but Steve's faster; he grabs the Russian's wrist and twists hard. The other patrons are screaming. The gun clatters to the floor and he turns, elbowing Lukin in the solar plexus. Someone's definitely called the police by now. Lukin drops like a stone, and Steve reaches for the gun —

BANG! White-hot pain spears through his leg, an icy burn that nearly drops him to his knees. The glass table is shattered, food and wine spilling onto the floor, deadly shards of glass skidding. He turns. The wife has a gun, too. She's pointing it directly at his chest now. Her finger is on the trigger. He thinks his heart has already stopped beating.

"Police!" someone hollers, and all hell breaks loose.

He doesn't know where Sam is now. He barely knows where he is. Everything is chaos, everyone bolts in different directions. No more shots are fired. He gets away on pure adrenaline, and his leg throbs with agony as he staggers. He doesn't know how far he goes before he can't anymore and drags himself into a dark alley beside an overflowing dumpster. It's dirty here, trash piles scattered, but it's dark and secluded. He gropes his back pocket for his cellphone, but it's gone. _Shit_.

"You don't look so good, pal."

Steve startles and spins, nearly toppling over. He catches himself with a hand against the alley wall behind him and a grunt of pain. One of the trash piles is stirring.

"Speak for yourself," he says through grit teeth. It's hard to see a person under all that filth, but now that he squints at it, he thinks he can see long, stringy brown hair.

"This is my dumpster," replies the trash. "You gonna be rude, you can get the fuck out. And quit bleedin' on everything, I don't want no cops to come pokin' around."

Steve has to take a moment to absorb these words; he isn't used to being spoken to so disrespectfully. He reaches down blindly to feel the warm wetness of his leg and the sharp piece of glass lodged there, and realizes how fast he's losing blood. He feels dizzy.

"Stings like a bitch, don't it?" the trash pile goes on. The way he says it seems to be from experience. "That's a lot of blood, pal. You oughta see an ER before you lose that leg to infection or some shit. Got a phone? I'll call 911 for ya. Just get out of my alley for them to pick you up, alright?"

"You should see a shower," Steve retorts lamely, instinctively on the defensive, and it's weak. He can't go to an emergency room; he's too recognizable, so soon after the incident. The family has their own doctors for this sort of thing, but he has no way to contact his people now. 

The trash hobo is surprisingly perceptive, and somehow reads into this via his shower comment. "Wrong side of the law, huh? That figures. What're you, some kind of gangster? Got hit in a rumble? Shoot-out with the cops? Extortion-turned-exodus?"

"None of the above," Steve groans. He feels faint. 

The tramp is moving again, and Steve finally sees a face, searing blue-gray eyes in a domino mask of grease and mud, a week or so of stubble, and a prominently cleft chin. He lets go of the filthy blanket that had been covering most of his body and gets to his feet, looking lean and misshapen under a black hoodie several sizes to large. The left sleeve is empty.

Steve nods to it. "You a veteran?" he asks, sagging back against the wall. He's not going to be able to hold himself up much longer.

The man makes a sound that might be a derisive laugh. "Not even American, pal." He's getting closer. "I know a doc who'll treat you off the books, though. We've got a sort of ongoing agreement, me and him. I can get him to treat you, if you can pay up. Mobsters make good money, yeah?"

Steve doesn't really have a choice. "How much do you want?"

He's sliding down the wall. The man catches him with his one arm, maneuvering Steve's left arm up over his shoulders and taking a good chunk of his weight. Steve's ego is dealt a blow when he physically can't resist. The hobo is surprisingly strong.

"Well it ain't up to me, the doc names his own price." The voice is right in his ear now, and the smell of garbage is overwhelming. He wonders how long the man has been rotting here. He shifts, trying to heft Steve higher up his shoulder. "Come on, big guy. You gotta help me out here, I can't carry all thousand pounds of you the whole way."

Steve gets his left leg under him and hobbles. The hobo wraps his arm around his back to support him and guide him in the right direction. Steve is too woozy to track which way they're going. He feels both disgustingly vulnerable and in too much pain to give a shit what happens to him. He feels cold. Right now, the hobo could kill him just by letting go and walking away.

"What's your name?" he asks, jaw still clenched. He's hanging on to the trash hobo's shoulders so tightly he's probably bruising them, and he feels the hesitation before the reply.

"Bucky," the man says. It doesn't sound like a real name, but Steve doesn't care. If the man really is saving his life, he can't keep referring to him as _the hobo_ , no matter how badly he smells. "You?"

"Steve."

Bucky's walk stutters shortly, and then he snorts. "Ain't that too ordinary? Thought you'd give me some sorta street name, like 'Shady B' or 'Manimal.' What kinda thug has a name like _Steve_? I knew a guy's grandpa named that."

Steve can't bother to feel offended, but he also can't pass up an opportunity to bicker. "My street name's for work," he mutters. "And you can't talk, _Bucky_. My old neighbor had a dog called that. Chocolate lab. Smelled like shit. Not as bad as you, though."

From the way his ribs move and his huff of breath, Steve thinks Bucky laughs again, but he can't see his face. He's seeing spots and his good leg is giving out, his head drooping against his chest as he stares unseeingly at the ground. There's more black to his vision than pavement, now.

"Hang on, Manimal," says Bucky, heaving him around a corner. "Almost there. Don't make me carry you up three flights of stairs, pal."

"Don't drop me," Steve mumbles, and then everything goes dark.

•••

Steve doesn't think he's ever been this disoriented before. It takes him a solid couple of minutes of lying on a stiff white cot in bemusement to remember why his leg is throbbing, and to look around the small room he's in and remember a disabled homeless guy has taken him to a doctor somewhere. He has no idea where he is. The small, square window shows faint sunlight and the brick wall of the building opposite. The room itself is bare, painted an unpleasant salmon color. The door doesn't fit well and is only partly closed, wedged into the frame but not latched.

He looks to his leg. His pants have been removed, though someone was decent enough to put elastic-waist gym shorts on him to save his dignity. His right thigh is swathed in bandages, and there's an I.V. drip hooked up to his arm. The stand is old and rusty. He hopes the needle was sterile.

His gives himself another few minutes to orientate, and then clears his throat. "Hello?" It's raspy and too quiet. He swallows and tries again. "Hello? Someone out there?"

He hears footsteps, and then the door is shoved open and a short, bespectacled man appears. He smiles, and Steve immediately distrusts him.

"Mr. Steve," says the doctor. He has a European accent that Steve can't place. "Glad to see you awake. I'm Dr. Zola. How does your leg feel?"

"Numb," says Steve. "But not too bad. Where's . . . Bucky?" It takes him a moment to remember the homeless man's name.

Dr. Zola shrugs. "Away wherever he goes when he's not here, I suppose. Worry not; he comes in weekly for his treatments. You'll be able to thank him properly if you like. But now, let me see." He began tinkering around, taking Steve's temperature and checking his eyes. "You're lucky you came to me so fast. No major arteries were damaged, but you should take it easy for a month or so. I can supply you with antibiotics and bandages and you can treat yourself. Now, about payment . . ."

If he had a better grip on Dr. Zola's personality, Steve might have been able to threaten his way into a free treatment — plenty of illicit businesses like Zola's little clinic here pay dues to the Furies in return for "protection" — but he has the uneasy feeling that Zola is the kind of man who'll stuff him in a freezer and deny he's ever been here if he tries. And the only other person who even knows he's here is a disabled bum Steve might never see again. He weighs his odds, and pays up. He can always come back, if he feels annoyed enough in the future, but Zola _has_ just saved his life.

He discovers he's been here three days already, first passed out and then knocked out by drugs while the doctor operated. Zola keeps him one more day, and then feeds him a rather sparse sandwich as a parting gesture, hands him a pair of crutches, and ushers him out the door. 

"Come back if it starts to bleed again," he says from the doorway as Steve clumsily makes his way down the stairs. "Don't get it wet. Sponge baths only. Take the antibiotics or it will get infected. Don't go more than three days without changing the bandages."

It's a relief to get outside and away from his nasally voice, but the breeze is chilly, and Steve is suddenly aware he's wearing nothing but a t-shirt and gym shorts. He shivers, looking around. He has no idea where he is.

"Can't say that's a good look on you, but I guess it's an improvement to bleedin' out on a pile of trash."

Steve recognizes the voice. He turns to see Bucky standing behind him, shoulders hunched against the cold. His hood is up and his lank hair is hooked behind his ears. Some of the grease and dirt has been wiped from his face, but judging from the rest of him, Steve doubts he's properly washed since they last met.

"Hey," says Steve, turning awkwardly on his crutches. "I didn't thank you, before."

Bucky just shoves his hand in his pocket and shrugs. "What's the verdict? You gonna live?"

Steve frowns down at his bandaged leg. "Guess so. He didn't go into detail, just said to rest up for a month or so and I'd be fine."

"That's good. Good. Yeah." Bucky seems to hesitate. "I was just, uh, comin' to check on you, ya know. I mean, Zola's a good doctor but he's not so trustworthy, I don't think. Wanted to make sure he really was treatin' you and all and not sellin' you for parts."

Steve has to crack a smile, because it seems Bucky has the same impression of Zola that he does. "Yeah, he did okay by me. I'll get double-checked by my own doctor, but I'm still alive, so that's something."

"Yeah, well, you still look a little unsteady on your feet there. Sure you should be walkin' around so soon? You live nearby?"

"Actually, I'm not even sure where we are right now." He glances around, looking for a landmark or street sign, but there are only beat-down old apartment blocks and the odd crusty convenience store.

"Corner of Brentley and Spring Street," says Bucky. He nods in the direction behind Steve. "42nd Ave is that way. We're in Digstown."

They'd walked further than he'd realized the other day. He guesses he's about a thirty-minute cab ride from his apartment.

"You gonna get home okay? I can help you catch a cab if you like."

There's something amusing and bizarre about Bucky's repeated attempts to help him. Steve briefly wonders what the other man would think of the fact that he directly controls about twenty violent criminals and can have people beaten to death with a snap of his fingers. On the other hand, it's oddly sweet to have a stranger wanting to look out for him, even if that stranger is an unkempt trash hobo.

"Yeah alright," he agrees. "But if you keep doing me all these favors, I have to pay you back one." Bucky starts to raise his hand as though to protest, but Steve pushes on, "For the love of god, please use my shower to properly wash yourself."

Bucky freezes and gives him this guarded, wide-eyed look, as though the idea of a shower is somehow threatening or horrifying. Steve wonders if his offer has somehow been taken the wrong way, so he adds,

"You smell like you just crawled out of a gutter. I have standards with the company I keep."

Bucky shifts from foot to foot, as though thinking it over, and then, slowly, he nods. "Alright," he says. "Thanks."

It's a little depressing that a guy's in a situation where he can say "thanks" after being told he smells like a gutter, but Steve's glad he can at least pay Bucky back a little — give him a shower and a meal at the very least, maybe slip him a few twenties when he leaves.

Steve jerks his head towards the main road. "Let's catch a cab," he says.

•••

Note: "Shady B" and "Manimal" were both taken from the book Generation Kill.


	2. Do I Wanna Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky finally takes a shower. Steve finds out he's not just any homeless bum. Tony knows too much about everyone.
> 
> Chapter title by Arctic Monkeys

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, no beta. If you spot any typos or grammatical errors, feel free to drop me a line.
> 
> P.S. in case any Tony lovers were worried, he's not a bad guy here; he was undercover and honestly didn't know Bucky's situation was involuntary
> 
> P.P.S. your comments give me life and motivate me to keep writing this

The hot water feels sinfully good. Bucky can't even remember the last time he had a hot shower.

He tips his head back, rinsing Steve's shampoo out of his hair and turning the water just a tad hotter, shifting so it hits that perfect spot under the nape of his neck. He closes his eyes and sighs.

Steve's apartment is nice. Whatever illicit activities he's involved with, it makes good money. There's a large living room with a wide southern window, lush furniture, and a widescreen TV, and an adjoining kitchen with an island counter. He hasn't been in the other rooms, but he saw a spare bedroom and some sort of study on the way to the bathroom, as well as a few closed doors.

There are two bathrooms in the apartment: a small, showerless one by the mudroom, and a bigger, more lavish one adjacent to Steve's room. This is the one Bucky's using. It has two sinks, a bathtub the size of a Jacuzzi, and a square tiled shower behind a separate curtain. There's something uncomfortable about being naked in a stranger's home and he's locked the door securely, but in this moment, relaxing in the scented steam of his hot shower, Bucky feels better than he has in months.

Steve said to take as long as he needs, but he thinks he's been in here for longer than half an hour already. The first five minutes of watching the water run brown and dirty and then slowly fade to clear had been immensely satisfying. Steve is also apparently a very clean man who is well stocked with soaps and shampoos, and Bucky has indulged. Now he's just wasting hot water, but hell does it feel good.

Eventually, reluctantly, he turns the knob and steps out onto a fluffy blue bathmat, taking a clean towel from the rack and scrubbing it through his hair before carefully drying around his left shoulder and peeling off the plastic he's covered the bandages with. It's at this moment that he realizes the only clothes he has are the filthy rags he's dumped on the closed toilet lid, and what a waste it will be to put them on over his now sparkling clean body.

Someone knocks on the door, and he startles.

"Bucky? It's Steve."

He whips the towel around his waist so fast he nearly punches himself in the crotch, but the door doesn't open. 

"I have to go out for a bit," says Steve. "Work stuff."

"Shouldn't you be restin' up?" Bucky asks. "Do they accept gimpy gangsters in the mob, or whatever you do?"

"Don't worry, I'm just going to talk to some people. Nothing strenuous. I'm leaving you a change of clothes out here, and the razors are in the right side cupboard if you want a shave. I shouldn't be gone more than a couple hours, but help yourself to anything in the fridge and stay as long as you like."

There's a moment of silence, and then he realizes he's supposed to respond. He clears his throat. "Uh, okay. Thank you."

"Sure."

He listens to the receding footsteps, and then hears the apartment door open, close, and lock. He breathes out a sigh, the tension fading from his body. He's alone.

The razors are right where Steve said they'd be, and he spends a while carefully shaving away the shadow along his jaw and above his lips. His hair has gotten uncomfortably long and though he's not about to give himself a haircut, he does find a rubber band he uses to tie it back out of his face. He feels like an entirely different person.

As promised, he finds a pile of clothes outside the door: red boxers with little gray hearts that still have a tag on them, faded jeans, and a black t-shirt featuring a band Bucky doesn't know. Everything fits decently enough and he pads barefoot towards the kitchen. He hasn't eaten since yesterday morning, when he'd managed to get to the homeless shelter early enough to snag breakfast. He hated going there and being crowded into a line of people like him — people who made him actually have to think about what he looked like and how badly off he was. On the plus side, volunteers often made the same mistake Steve had and, assuming he was a veteran, made sure he got a decent serving or tossed in an extra spoonful of whatever was on the menu. Bucky felt like shit every time they thanked him for his service, but he never corrected them. He took what he could get.

The interior of Steve's fridge is a work of art. There's a colorful array of vegetables Bucky can't even name, no less than three Tupperware containers of leftovers — spinach lasagna, lentil soup, and some sort of bean and veggies dish, from the looks of it — a box of strawberries and three smaller boxes of raspberries, three bottles of Italian sodas, an assortment of beers, and a couple packs of tofu. The doorway behind the stove turns out to be a walk-in pantry that's just as impressively stocked. Bucky can only assume Steve has guests frequently, because there's no way one person could eat all this food alone.

Steve's apartment is _really_ nice. He munches his way through one of the boxes of strawberries as he pokes around. He's already seen Steve's bedroom when he walked through it to get to the bathroom, and it's the second biggest room after the living area. There's also a guest bedroom made up with matching sheets and featuring some art nouveau on the walls, and an art studio scattered with various half-finished works of art. Bucky wonders if Steve himself is the artist, and thinks he probably is. The current work in progress on the easel is a self-portrait, but Steve's drawn himself funny — in the picture he's young and small and skinny, grinning through a bloody nose with his fists up. Bucky really only recognizes him by his floppy blond hair and blazingly blue eyes.

He eventually winds up back in the kitchen, helping himself to a bowlful of the soup before settling into one of the cushy sofas and flicking on the TV. It's been ages since he's sat down to watch a show and he doesn't recognize anything that's on. He settles for a nature program and watches a documentary about cheetahs until he begins to feel drowsy. Then he sets his empty bowl on the coffee table and curls up on the couch, breathing deeply. It's sinfully comfortable after weeks of sleeping on a garbage pile. Steve _did_ tell him to stay as long as he wants. A quick nap can't hurt . . .

He wakes to the sound of a hushed argument. It's dark outside now. Alarmed and disoriented, he freezes where he lies, trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible, and realizes the conversation is coming from the kitchen behind the couch he's occupying. He's lying down, so they can't see him below the back of the furniture.

"— Getting real pissed about it, Cap. The Russians _still_ hold us responsible for his murder, you know, and —"

It's not Steve's voice, but he recognizes it from somewhere. It makes his skin crawl in all the wrong ways.

"It was nine months ago, Tony, and we had nothing to do with it." This voice, the one that interrupts the first, is Steve's.

"Yeah and we can say that 'til we're blue in the face, but Widow says they're not getting over it anytime soon and this is just the beginning, the turf grabs and stirring up trouble on the west side — Cap we gotta do something, we gotta retaliate or —"

"You think I don't know that?" Steve sounds both pained and frustrated. "You should've seen Fury's face when I had to tell him about the botched attempt in the diner. Sam's gone into hiding for now but they're not buying any excuses of disassociation. Lukin won't let something like this go, but Fury won't talk to me about another try. And since Karpov's been out of the picture —"

Bucky can't stop the startled noise he makes at the sound of that name, and both men break off.

"What was that?" the other man, Tony, whispers.

"Houseguest," Steve mutters, and then raises his voice. "Bucky? You still here?"

For a moment Bucky just freezes up; wishes he could sink into the couch and disappear. He wanted to be gone before Steve got home, and it's even worse that Steve has a friend with him. He clears his throat.

"Yeah," he says, hoping he's managing to sound convincingly nonchalant. He gets to his feet, brushing back the hair that's escaped from his rubber band. It's almost unrecognizably clean. "Sorry, didn't mean to sleep for so long. I'll get outta . . ."

He trails off as he turns. Steve's leaning on his crutches, frowning a bit as though surprised Bucky's still there, but Bucky's gaze is drawn to Steve's friend, Tony. His pulse speeds up and for a moment, he can't breathe. He knew that voice was familiar, and now, pairing it with that styled hair, crisp brown eyes, neatly trimmed facial hair . . . he knows him — he knows him — when Tony meets his gaze, he takes an involuntary step back.

Tony's eyebrows furrow briefly, as though confused. Bucky quickly looks away, feeling the heat rising up his neck in a mixture of anger and humiliation. Maybe Tony's forgotten, he thinks. He was usually drunk. Maybe he doesn't remember Bucky. He hopes. He hopes. But then . . .

Tony lets out a huffing sound of disbelief. "Jesus, Cap," he says. "What the hell?"

Steve is looking from Bucky to Tony with the most bemused look on his face. "You two know each other?

" _Know_ — Steve! We're practically at war with the Russians!" Tony flings a hand in Bucky's direction, and he flinches. "Why do you have one in your living room?"

The look Steve throws Bucky is so sharp and sudden he nearly takes another step back. "Excuse me?"

Bucky raises his one hand defensively, swallowing his panic. "Look —"

"You're one of the Russians?" His tone is a mixture of surprise, disappointment, anger, and, worst of all, mistrust. Bucky doesn't really trust anyone, especially not someone he's known for so short a time, but so far, he likes Steve. He doesn't want to make him an enemy because of this shitty, awful situation that he has no way of explaining.

"He's not a made man." Tony's looking Bucky up and down with this odd look on his face, and Bucky hates it. "But he used to work for them down at the Red Room, on the stage and in the back. He had two arms then, no idea what happened with that. I'd, you know, see him, when I worked with Widow on that undercover gig for a few months, remember? Before Karpov bit it."

Tony speaks about him like he's not even there. Bucky can't look at Steve's face, but the words burn through him when Steve says, "You're a prostitute?"

"Prostitute, dancer, stripper." Tony can't seem to shut his mouth. "He was a big earner for them. Used to help ease tensions in their deals, get people over to their side and keep them coming back for more. Was part of the deal when I was down there. Sure was good at his job, I'll tell you that much. His stage name was the Winter Soldier — yeah, funny, right?" Steve isn't laughing. "Course, the whole place went to shit when Karpov was killed. Doesn't explain why you've got him in your apartment, though."

Bucky wants to hit something. He wants to punch Tony in the face. He wants to run away. He wants to say something to defend himself. He wants to sink through the floor. But he's frozen, waiting for Steve to react, waiting to see what they'll do with him — shoot him, interrogate him, turn him back over to the Russians? Whatever Steve's role is here, he must be some important member of his gang or whatever it is. Bucky has never paid much attention to the hierarchy and separation of criminals in the city. He stares at the floor. He can't look at Steve for having to face his reaction; can't look at Tony without seeing him in the Red Room, back in Bucky's quarters, smelling the alcohol on his breath as he used the time he'd paid for, his body taught and sweaty, his words filthy while Bucky let himself be used . . . Bucky hates his voice.

"Well," says Steve eventually. "He's here because he's the one who got me to a doctor after I fucked up with Lukin, and I owed him. Look, Tony, thanks for tonight and all. We'll talk tomorrow, alright?" From the corner of his eye, Bucky sees Steve jerk his jaw in his direction. "I need to have a chat with him. Go home, get some rest."

"Your call, cap." Tony sounds skeptical, as though reluctant to leave Steve alone with Bucky. He starts towards the door, and then pauses, hesitating. "But uh, hey. Winter Soldier, guy." It takes a significant amount of self-will and determination to lift his gaze and look Tony in the eyes. He gets chills all over and an awful pounding in his veins, but he holds on to a steady, unforgiving stare. "I dunno what you're up to or what you want, here, but I guess you saved my friend's life, so, you know, thanks for that."

Bucky doesn't know how to respond, so he just drops his gaze and shrugs. The click of the door shutting is deafening, and then he's alone with Steve again.

There's a long silence. So long, in fact, that it goes from awkward to excruciating and then fades to a sort of numbness. Bucky just stands frozen and stares at the floor, waiting so long he starts to think Steve isn't ever going to say anything. But, eventually, he does.

"Do you work for the Russians?" he asks, and his tone is so carefully neutral Bucky can't read a thing into it.

He shakes his head. "No," he says, and his voice is a bit hoarse with nerves. He clears it. He still doesn't know what Steve plans to do with him. "Not anymore. Never wanted to."

"Well then how'd you end up working for them, and at the Red Room of all places?" Bucky startles at the sharpness in his tone; he sounds almost angry now. "'Cause this isn't making any sense to me."

Bucky can't stand being scrutinized like this. "I'll go," he says shakily. "Look, m'sorry. If I'da known you were some big shot I'd've never come here."

"You're not going anywhere." Steve must see the sudden flash of panic in Bucky's eyes because his voice is a bit softer when he adds, "You know where I live. I can't let you go until I'm sure you're not working for the Russians." And then, because apparently Steve really is a good guy and wants to make Bucky feel more comfortable despite everything, adds, "You look a lot better now, by the way. Almost didn't recognize you without the baby birds in your hair. Talk to me, Bucky. I don't want us to be enemies."

Bucky realizes he doesn't have much of a choice. He'll have to tell Steve at least part of the truth, and hope that'll be good enough for him. He takes a deep breath.

•••

Come play with me on [tumblr](http://www.theshadowofthewaxwing.tumblr.com/)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait on chapter three — going through a job change and a move and I haven't had much time for writing. I'm working on it!


	3. After Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky tells Steve how he came to America. Steve has a bit of a crush. Bucky makes a mistake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the nice comments~ Still in the middle of a wild apartment hunt but I'm anticipating more writing time once I start my new job next month.
> 
> Song by Le Tigre. To be honest I picked it more for the title than its suitability . . .

Steve feels like a terrible, awful person, because now that Bucky's cleaned up, he looks about ten years younger and he's stupidly good-looking. He's got his hair pulled back, but wisps of it have escaped to frame his face, showing off pretty blue eyes and a nicely curved mouth. He'd also been hiding an adorably cleft chin under all that stubble.

Steve had been doing his best not to stare when he first got a good look at him, but then Tony started talking and everything went to shit. Not only is Bucky one of the Russians; he's a whore. And Steve feels awful because even though there's a layer of pity and aversion on top of it, even though Bucky looks like the sort of guy who'd probably taken the job out of desperation and not any long-held aspiration to be a prostitute, a less thoughtful part of Steve gets a kick of excitement that goes straight to his crotch. He feels guilty immediately, but shit, he'd felt Bucky pressed against him when he'd been injured, knows there's a really nice body under those clothes . . .

He tries to shake off the feeling and get his attention back on the issue at hand. He can't take this situation lightly; whatever his role, Bucky has still been playing for the enemy. Steve can't be sure anything he says is true — for all he knows, the Russians have set this whole thing up. Bucky could be a spy, a Trojan horse; an assassin, for that matter.

With one arm, Steve doubts this is the case, especially since Bucky's already saved his life once. But he isn't going to let his guard down that easily.

"Tell me," he says. "How'd you end up working for the Russians?"

Bucky's got the look of a man trying his damnedest not to appear as terrified as he feels. He licks his lips and says, "I was born in Russia. My mom was poor, couldn't look after both of us. She got — she got approached, y'know. Promised good work in America." He broke of awkwardly.

"She got trafficked," Steve fills in for him, and he nods.

"Yeah. Brought me with. I was seven. They took her papers, her passport, everything. We got trapped. She didn't have no other way to support us, couldn't go home. Then she — then I —"

He seems to struggle for the words. Steve waits a moment, feeling a bit sick at what he realizes he's about to hear, wondering if Bucky will be able to go on. He prompts, "When did you start?"

"They pulled me out of school when I was fifteen." He swallows. "One of the — I dunno — higher-ups, took a liking to me. Thought I was pretty." There's a flash of anger in his expression, and Steve feels even worse, because Bucky _is_ pretty, and he hates his own thoughts right now. "Mom tried to intervene but she'd already turned to drugs then and she'd got pregnant with my baby sister so they said, since she couldn't work, it was me or they'd get rid of the baby and my mom in the process, said I'd be worth more to them anyway — said I'd do it. Didn't know what the fuck I was doing."

He stares down at his feet, falling silent. Feeling disgusted, Steve turns away, hobbling back to the kitchen. He flicks on the light and opens the fridge. "Did you eat?" he asks.

"What?" Bucky's voice comes from a ways behind him. He hasn't moved from in front of the couch.

"Dinner. Did you eat something? You've been living on a pile of trash, don't try to pretend you've been getting three meals a day."

"Uh, yeah." His voice is a bit closer this time, and he sounds puzzled. "You said . . ."

Steve takes out a box of raspberries, opens them and sets them on the island. When he turns, he can see Bucky hesitating in the wide, frameless doorway between the living room and the kitchen. "Why'd you stay?" he asks.

Bucky can't quite seem to make eye contact. He stares at Steve's arm and answers, "My little sister. They told me if I left, she'd take my place. She was a _child_." And he gets that flash of anger again. "And I don't got any sort of papers at all. Said I'd get jailed for life anyway, said my life would be the same and worse."

Steve doubts this is true — Bucky would probably be deported, not jailed — but doesn't comment. His view of the world would have to be skewed; of all the lies the Russians must have showered him in, he could only pick and choose which sounded real. "Your sister?" he asks, because the Red Room has reopened since Karpov's violent death caused the place to be shut down and Steve estimates that at a fifteen year age difference, Bucky's sister would barely be a teenager herself now. If the Red Room still has children like that working in their back rooms Steve doesn't care what Fury thinks about tactics and strategy, he'll blow the place up himself. 

But Bucky is shaking his head. "I dunno. She's safe, wherever she is, though. They lied to me the whole time, course they did. After my mom died, Rebecca went into the system. She's in foster care somewhere. They never had her. When I found out, that's when I — got out."

He's still standing in the doorway, fist clenched in his pocket, refusing to meet Steve's eyes, and Steve wants to ask _how_ he got out but something in that icy gaze makes the words die on his tongue. He seems to be expecting something, something bad, a rebuttal or Steve's disgust or maybe to be kicked out; Steve doesn't know. But Steve doesn't want to do any of those things, and finds himself believing everything Bucky's told him. So he does the only thing he can think to do and pushes the carton of raspberries across the island.

"Here," he says.

Bucky looks from the berries to Steve and finally makes eye contact. He looks both wary and confused. "What are you going to do with me?" he asks.

Steve shrugs. "You're not working for the Russians," he says. "You don't seem to be here to spy on me or kill me, seeing as you could've already done that. But you did help me out and it sounds like you've had a rough go of it, so I'm giving you some fruit," he pushes the box a little further along the counter, since Bucky still hasn't moved, "and my spare bedroom."

Bucky's eyes go wide, and he's shaking his head before Steve even finishes speaking. "No," he says. "No, I don't — look, I'll just leave, okay? I'm not gonna tell no one about you, I'm not gonna try to get you in trouble with no cops or nothing, I just —"

Steve holds up a hand to stop him. "If you've got somewhere to go other than a trash pile," he says, "by all means." When Bucky doesn't speak, he adds, "Come on, just take it. After what you just told me, I'd feel like shit turning you loose on the streets in the middle of the night. There's no one else here, not like it's an inconvenience or anything."

Bucky doesn't argue back this time, just stands there, staring at Steve like he's a puzzle that needs to be solved, like there's some sort of trick he's missing. Steve's leg throbs. He feels exhausted, and he only gets so much time off for his injury. He'd like to use it to relax, not bicker with problematic guests. He feels bad for the guy, but there's not much else he can do.

Bucky just stares at the raspberries and bites his lip.

"Well, alright," Steve sighs. Bucky clearly doesn't trust him and really, Steve can't blame him. He doesn't fully trust Bucky, either, but he's fairly sure he's in no immediate danger, at any rate. "It's up to you. I'm not gonna force you to stay. There's the door," he gestures, "and there's the spare bedroom. Up to you." And then he gets his crutches back under his armpits and hobbles towards his own bedroom.

•••

Ten minutes later, Bucky's still standing in the kitchen when he sees the line of light below Steve's door flick off.

He hasn't decided. He doesn't want to leave, not really. It's chilly out tonight, and he's clean, really clean, for the first time in months. He doesn't want to go back to his trash pile. He doesn't want to spend the night out on the streets.

But he's also been duped and misled too many times to take what Steve's saying at face value. No one keeps him around for no reason. No one just offers their home to a bum like him, especially not a guy like Steve. He's a mobster, after all; whatever he's done in his life, he's sure not squeaky clean. But Bucky can't decide which would be worse: going back to the streets, or letting Steve take advantage of him.

It's not like this tactic has never been used on him before — people coming to the Red Room and trying to persuade him to leave with them, so they could take care of him, so they could "save" him, as if he had any choice in the matter. And the worst bit is, if he'd _had_ a choice, he knows for quite a few of them, he would have taken it. One person wouldn't be so bad, he used to think to himself on the worst nights. Even if he were still trapped, it couldn't be as bad as this.

Steve has been nice to him so far. He's got money. He's got connections. Even better, he seems to be part of the Russian mob's biggest opposition. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, and all that. Bucky could do worse.

He finally moves from the kitchen, but he doesn't go to the spare bedroom. He pauses in front of Steve's door, swallows down a pit of anxiety and dread, and takes a breath. Just do it. Just get it over with. He opens the door.

The overhead light is off, but the bedside lamp is still on. Steve is lounging in a pair of pajama bottoms, reading a book. He has ink, Bucky notices, two bands around his left bicep, some sort of symbol to the right of his abs, and the pulse of a monitor above his heart. He raises his eyebrows as though surprised to see Bucky there.

"Need something?" he asks.

Bucky doesn't reply, but takes the hem of his borrowed t-shirt shirt in his hand and pulls it off over his head. He's still self-conscious about the stub of his left arm, but at least everything is wrapped up in bandages with no scar tissue visible. Steve seems to freeze, eyes dropping to his torso. Bucky reaches for his fly next, undoing his jeans one-handed with easy practice and stepping out of them until he's in nothing but the boxers Steve had left outside the bathroom earlier. It's been a while since he's done this — it's been since he lost his arm and he's never done it one-handed — but he knows exuding confidence is the only key he needs, whether he feels it or not.

He prowls towards the bed and crawls on. Steve is sitting up more now, words still failing him as Bucky boldly straddles his lap and runs his hand down his torso. He has a nice body, really, Bucky tells himself. It won't be so bad. He wonders how Steve likes it — slow and gentle, or rough and fast, or heated and passionate. 

The capo finally manages to speak. "H-hey," he stutters. "What are you doing?"

"Shh," Bucky breathes, because he doesn't really want to hear Steve talking right now, doesn't want anything that's going to make him think about what he's doing. He puts his finger to Steve's lips for emphasis, and this is easier, now, this is practiced, he knows what he's doing. "You want this, don't you?"

He leans in and licks Steve's neck, hearing the other's breath hitch, and then kisses down to a nipple. He scoots back a little to make room to work his hand into Steve's pants, and knows he's right when he can feel the mobster already hardening under his touch. Steve groans as Bucky moves to tongue his other nipple.

"Bucky," he says, and his voice is all air. Bucky's stomach twists at the sound of his name in that sort of voice. "What . . .?"

Bucky ignores him, ignores everything, shuts down his thoughts. There's a roaring in his ears and he kisses down Steve's torso, his hard abs and shifting stomach, hooks his hand into the waistbands of his pajamas and boxers and pulls both down in one sharp tug, freeing his dick. It's big, but Bucky's sucked bigger. He lowers himself down to lick up it, tongue the slit, and then take the head in his mouth and start bobbing his head.

"Holy fuck," Steve exhales, and Bucky feels a hand sift through his hair and then grasp a handful of it. His shuts his eyes, and he takes it. He used to be a talker during this sort of thing, pulling back to murmur filthy words with his lips pressed to a leaking dick or tongue up against a clit, but he can't bring himself to do it now; just slides his tongue up along Steve's cock and sucks harder. Steve makes a soft sound and the hand in his hair tightens, tugs a bit, and Bucky is sure he's getting off on it but — "B-Bucky wait — stop. Bucky, _stop_."

Now he's not tugging so much as pulling Bucky off, and he might as well have punched Bucky in the gut for the sudden roiling of disgust with himself Bucky gets as he sits back, wiping his mouth of the back of his hand. He can't look at Steve, can't look at anything, of _course_ Steve doesn't want this, what had he been thinking? Steve's wealthy and handsome, he can have anyone he wants, anytime he wants; and Bucky's pathetic, used and crippled, misshapen, he's trash, literally, Steve found him in a fucking pile of trash and Bucky can't get out of here fast enough. His foot gets caught in the sheets and he nearly falls as he almost tries to catch himself with an arm he doesn't have. He feels like he's going to throw up. He doesn't hear what Steve says as he bolts for the door and doesn't realize the other man is even following him until he's halfway down the hall and a hand lands on his shoulder.

He wheels and throws the punch without thinking. Steve's fast. He blocks the attack with practiced ease, right hand closing around Bucky's wrist, but as he steps back with his other palm to Bucky's bicep, ready to put him on the ground, his injured leg gives out and he staggers into the wall. Bucky yanks free.

"Wait," Steve says, still regaining his balance. "Hey! Bucky!"

But Bucky's already out the door. He's a good three blocks away before the cold sets in and he's glad it's dark out because, he realizes as he ducks into an alley to avoid several people on their way home from a pub, he's wearing nothing but boxers. His left shoulder begins to ache from the chill, and the distraction is almost a relief. He's so stupid, so _stupid_ , what had he been thinking? He can't even go back to his old trash pile now, the one that was well sheltered and had his stockpile of blankets the collection truck knew not to take. Steve could find him there. For all he knows, the capo has already sent soldiers after him; probably thinks Bucky is a Russian spy now, or, or . . . he stops moving, hidden behind a strip mall, and slams his fist uselessly against the wall. _You fucking fool, Barnes. Should never've gone with him to start. Should've fuckin' let him bleed out the first time you saw him._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how I feel about this chapter, to be honest, but here it is. Next one will be more gangstery, promise.


End file.
